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Blog:How CTI Can Help Contact Centers Get the Most from Their Data

By John Woods / Published on August 27, 2018

A look at how CTI can add value to your data and help you stay ahead of your competitors

With the rise of digital transformation and the huge technological advancements that have occurred over the last decade, the relationship a business has with its customers is more intimate than ever and computer telephony integration (CTI) is a solution that complements this bond.

Data is a powerful tool that enables businesses to learn much more about their customers and provide the kind of service that sets them apart from their competitors, and CTI is a perfect example of how this can be done – but how?

Improve contact center operational efficiency

If there is one thing every contact center has in common, it's that they all appreciate the value of efficiency and recognize how important it is that operations run quickly, smoothly and with as little error as possible.

Nobody likes waiting around aimlessly for things to happen, and in an age of digital transformation where customer expectations are rapidly evolving, finding a solution that ensures efficiency is consistently high is a key priority.

Thankfully, with computer telephony integration solutions such as InGenius, contact centers are now able to harness the mass amount of data they gather from each of their customers and use it to rapidly improve the quality of service they deliver to each and every caller.

With innovative features such as screen pop, for example, agents are able to quickly familiarize themselves with their customers' information, including their personal details and their previous interactions with the company across multiple channels (voice, live chat and email) as soon as a call is answered.

In addition to this, features such as click-to-dial and automated call logging ensure that agents need not waste precious time tediously searching through contact lists or manually logging data into the system, and can instead concentrate on completing the task at hand.

As well as reducing call times, by automating these processes, CTI drastically reduces the likeliness of human error and guarantees that all data collected will be accurate, easily accessible and highly effective when used at a later date to generate call reports.

Improve customer experience results

Perhaps above all else, the main focus of a contact center should be to ensure that their customers have a positive, pleasant experience and that each interaction ends with a sense of fulfillment and confidence that the business is doing all it can to give them what they want.

In fact, if we were to take into consideration a recent Walker report that predicts how customer expectation will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator by 2020, it becomes clear that meeting these expectations will soon become a necessity rather than a perk. CTI quickly becomes a crucial investment for any contact center.

With InGenius, for example, businesses are able to give a personalized experience that gives each customer fast, continuous service across all channels, thus giving them exactly what the want in the fasted time possible without having to repeat themselves every time they interact with the business.

Regulation compliance

Following on from the new GDPR regulations that were implemented throughout Europe in May 2018, all contact centers must now tread carefully with regards to how they manage their customers data as a failure to do so could be highly damaging to both the finances and reputation of the company.

Alongside monumental fines reaching as much as EUR 20 million or 4 % of global annual turnover, perhaps what is even more detrimental to the business is the damage said fines would do to its reputation through the eyes of a customer who no longer feels they can trust the company to keep their personal information safe and secure.

However, by choosing a reliable CTI solution that offers features such as automated call logging and a centralized hub where administrators can easily access, retrieve and, if necessary, erase any of their customers data on demand, many of these concerns are quickly eradicated.

For regulated industries where compliance and information security are key, there may also be a need to restrict the free form notes that agents take when on a call. InGenius offers the ability to lock down call log templates so only information from a set template can be logged, and an agent doesn’t have the ability to add their own anecdotal notes. This prevents potential breaches like putting a customer’s social security number, medical history or other private information in the system for anyone with access to the CRM to see.

What next?

If you own a contact center and are interested in adding value to the large amount of data which passes through each of your channels on a daily basis, while at the same time ensuring that all of that data is secured and stored in compliance with the new GDPR standards, finding a reputable CTI solution should be at the top of your to do list.

For more information on what CTI can do to help improve your contact center, please feel free to contact InGenius at 613-591-9002 x3000 where an advisor can talk you through the process and find a solution that meets all of your requirements.

About John Woods

John Woods is an experienced copywriter, communications enthusiast, blogger, SEO master and all-round tech nerd that specializes within the fields of computer telephony integration (CTI), cloud computing, unified communications and artificial intelligence (AI). He has written for some of the UK’s most reputable business comms publications including UC Today, the world’s leading unified communications & collaboration publication, and Denwa Communications (now Solar Communications), a leading managed service cloud provider and Mitel Gold Solutions Partner. John holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature from Leeds Metropolitan University. His work has been published on No Jitter and Customer Contact Central, and he has won recent writing awards from the 2018 Customer Contact Central MVP Awards – 2nd place winner in the call monitoring category and honorable mention in the multichannel and omnichannel category. In his spare time, John enjoys travelling around Central and South America.